1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sheet post-process apparatus for post-processing sheets of paper ejected from an image forming apparatus such as a copier, a printer, or a composite device.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, in an image forming apparatus, to post-process sheets of paper after image forming such as sorting or stapling sheets of paper, a sheet post-process apparatus may be installed in the neighborhood of the paper ejection unit of the image forming apparatus body. In such a sheet post-process apparatus, after waiting for ending of the sheet post-process of preceding sheets, the post-process of succeeding sheets is performed. To make the succeeding sheets ejected from the image forming apparatus body stand by like this, conventionally, a shifting path such as a standby tray may be installed halfway the path toward the stapling unit (for example, Japanese Patent Application 2004-155551).
When there are sheets of paper requiring no post process, from the viewpoint of maintaining the productivity of the image forming apparatus, a dedicated path of non-post-process sheets of paper is installed or non-post-process sheets of paper are ejected via the processing tray. Therefore, installation of a dedicated path causes an increase in cost and ejection of sheets of paper via the processing tray takes time.